{"title":"The circle of water justice in the history of Iran","authors":"Majid Labbaf Khaneiki, Abdullah Saif Al-Ghafri","doi":"10.1016/j.wasec.2022.100122","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article starts with the archaeology of justice in an attempt to get to the historical roots of the Iranians’ conception of justice. Justice has been founded on two conceptual pillars “social order” and “divine legitimacy” that were synthesized into the Iranian form of justice. Water justice has not meant equal distribution of water resources, but it has been more of an allocation system that distributed water among different territories according to their dissimilar geopolitical values.</p><p>This article explains how a causal relationship between justice, production system and political power could bring about the idea of the “circle of justice”. However, the circle of justice was an ideal model that could not find expression in real world, due to the taxation system whose inevitable malfunction led to the formation of another cycle called the “circle of water justice”.</p><p>This article draws an analogy between the historical polities and the present Iranian government in terms of “the circle of water justice”. After the 1979 revolution, this circle was based on an amalgamation between the traditional conception of justice and modern political philosophies, which prescribed socio-economic inequalities in favor of the least advantaged classes. Although “the circle of water justice” served to reinforce the political power, it fueled ecological degradation and social conflicts in the long run. This article concludes that Iran’s hydraulic mission is not the cause of their water crisis, but it is only the result of a subtle mechanism named “the circle of water justice”. Iran’s growing water crisis cannot be defused in the absence of a structural reform in “the circle of water justice”.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37308,"journal":{"name":"Water Security","volume":"16 ","pages":"Article 100122"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Water Security","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S246831242200013X","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Earth and Planetary Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
This article starts with the archaeology of justice in an attempt to get to the historical roots of the Iranians’ conception of justice. Justice has been founded on two conceptual pillars “social order” and “divine legitimacy” that were synthesized into the Iranian form of justice. Water justice has not meant equal distribution of water resources, but it has been more of an allocation system that distributed water among different territories according to their dissimilar geopolitical values.
This article explains how a causal relationship between justice, production system and political power could bring about the idea of the “circle of justice”. However, the circle of justice was an ideal model that could not find expression in real world, due to the taxation system whose inevitable malfunction led to the formation of another cycle called the “circle of water justice”.
This article draws an analogy between the historical polities and the present Iranian government in terms of “the circle of water justice”. After the 1979 revolution, this circle was based on an amalgamation between the traditional conception of justice and modern political philosophies, which prescribed socio-economic inequalities in favor of the least advantaged classes. Although “the circle of water justice” served to reinforce the political power, it fueled ecological degradation and social conflicts in the long run. This article concludes that Iran’s hydraulic mission is not the cause of their water crisis, but it is only the result of a subtle mechanism named “the circle of water justice”. Iran’s growing water crisis cannot be defused in the absence of a structural reform in “the circle of water justice”.
期刊介绍:
Water Security aims to publish papers that contribute to a better understanding of the economic, social, biophysical, technological, and institutional influencers of current and future global water security. At the same time the journal intends to stimulate debate, backed by science, with strong interdisciplinary connections. The goal is to publish concise and timely reviews and synthesis articles about research covering the following elements of water security: -Shortage- Flooding- Governance- Health and Sanitation